For the second time in two years a team from Germany has won the US Department of Energy's Solar Decathalon. This year's entry was a cube shaped house entirely covered in 300W and 70W solar panels generating a peak of 11.1kW. The DoE has published a complete product directory of all the subsystems and components used to build each house. Another notable design is the Canadian Team North house designed for optimal solar+insulation performance in high latitude climates.
posted by thewalrus on Oct 17, 2009 - 15 comments

Kropla's World Electric Guide - outlets / power plugs of the world (map), along with an index of international voltages and frequencies for travellers. Plugs in the future: modular, stylish, smart, eco-friendly, rotating, collapsible, or gone entirely.
posted by Paragon on Jul 28, 2009 - 12 comments

Mike Strizki lives in the nation's first solar-hydrogen house. "The technology this civil engineer has been able to string together – solar panels, a hydrogen fuel cell, storage tanks, and a piece of equipment called an electrolyzer – provides electricity to his home year-round, even on the cloudiest of winter days. Mr. Strizki's monthly utility bill is zero – he's off the power grid – and his system creates no carbon-dioxide emissions. Neither does the fuel-cell car parked in his garage, which runs off the hydrogen his system creates."
posted by mr_crash_davis on Mar 16, 2007 - 28 comments

Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas. The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power.
posted by stbalbach on Feb 19, 2007 - 88 comments

CitizenRe is a solar power rental company for the home. Free to install (!), a monthly rental fee is equal to what would normally be paid to the power company. Video.
posted by stbalbach on Jan 11, 2007 - 67 comments

A Mall Divided (youtube) - a musical tale of commerce, employment and electrical distribution for our times.
posted by Artw on Dec 18, 2006 - 9 comments

Hamster driven micro Power Plants ... the Hamster powered Night Light from the Otherpower.com guys .... also the school project of a London teen ... "Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about 30 minutes talk time on my phone." The teenage inventor was given a C for his project and has been awarded a D overall for the course" Please no Richard Gere jokes OK?
posted by celerystick on Nov 7, 2005 - 17 comments

Power Cut Shuts Down Iraq Oil Exports ASRA, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's oil exports were shut down Monday by a power cut that darkened parts of central and southern Iraq, including the country's only functioning oil export terminals, Iraqi and foreign oil officials said.
posted by celerystick on Aug 22, 2005 - 21 comments

Electric power transmission and distribution explosions and fireworks for your Fourth of July weekend.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Jul 2, 2005 - 6 comments

It's not the other white meat, but it seems cows have yet another use.

"That's some good shit, man (in my very best Tommy Chong!)."
posted by LouReedsSon on Jan 24, 2005 - 14 comments

Wind Power cheaper than coal, electric car does 0 to 60 in 3.7 w/300 mile cruising range

It's official: wind power is now cheaper than electricity from Coal, Stanford Researchers report in a study published in the Journal Science. Quiz for Metafilter science wonks: how much of current US energy consumption could be supplied by spending 200 billion dollars on wind turbines?

Meanwhile...Powered by 6800 lithium-ion batteries, the Tzero "from zero to 100 and through the quarter mile, will run with, or beat, the $281,000 Lamborghini Murci
posted by troutfishing on Sep 24, 2003 - 53 comments

Anyone smell a conspiracy? London and the South East gets hit by a massive power cut in a similar way to New York and the surrounding areas. Complaints from authorities in both cities of "under-investment in the National Grid " and talk of "antiquated infrastructure" strangely mirror each other and it's odd that these two extremely rare events have happened so close together. Was this a deliberate test of our emergency infrastructures, terrorism or just plain coincidence?
posted by andyHollister on Aug 29, 2003 - 31 comments

Top 10 ways to cope with power outages
From the Iraqis, who've had plenty of exeprience with this recently. (via Tapped)
posted by Gilbert on Aug 15, 2003 - 19 comments

This time it's for real: A Stage Three Power Emergency has been declared in California this evening. Rolling blackouts are expected, especially in Northern California. If MeFi goes down tonight, this is why. Nothing like government intervention disguised as "deregulation" to muck up the works.
posted by aaron on Jan 11, 2001 - 27 comments